Dean and Cas Laser Tag
by eleanorpark
Summary: After Dean and Sam get into another fight, Dean and Cas go laser tagging so that Dean can clear his head. However, their day of fun and games does not go as planned when they meet an unexpected foe and discover Sam's whereabouts.
1. Relapse

"Well, maybe you'd be better off without me, Dean!" Sam shouted through bared teeth as he slammed the door to their motel room behind him.

Dean sighed, muttering into his hands. It was the same fight, just a different day. Still pissed off at Sam and seeing his angry exit as an opportunity for free time, Dean nodded as he formed an idea of what to do that day. He stood up from where he sat on the creaky bed and breathed in through his nose.

"Cas," he breathed out, in his coarse, gruff low-pitched voice that sounded more like a pained grunt than a prayer. "Cas, you there?

"Yes, Dean," Castiel spoke in a monotone voice, appearing a foot's length behind Dean with only a flap of his angel wings as a warning. He had grown accustomed to these fights between the brothers and often came to comfort Dean during the repercussions. "Shall we go get some pie?"

Dean's eyes lit up and his heart beat a little faster, for he felt giddy thinking about how Cas acknowledged and remembered his love of pie, although it is one of his defining features. Regaining his original train of thought, he looked back down again, slightly embarrassed

"Um, well…" he trailed off, staring daggers into his worn-out sneakers. "I was thinking maybe we could do something different today?"

He looked up again with a half-pained smile, his voice almost a whisper with its usual Dean gruffness.

Cas looked down at Dean's unintentional puppy eyes as the light of the unsteady fluorescent bulb hanging from the ceiling reflected off of their glassy green. He cocked his head slightly to the side and the corners of his mouth folded into a slight frown, confused.

"What do you mean, _different? _Are we not following the usual routine?"

"No, Cas," Dean looked him straight in the eyes now. "Sometimes it's good to do something different, you know? It gives life some variety."

"Different throws you off guard, and you become unprepared for whatever may happen." Cas started using his reciting voice, as if lecturing Dean on his foolish attitude. "Different is very bad. Different is unstable. Different is precarious. Different is—"

"Alright Cas," Dean interrupted, slightly annoyed. He began talking progressively faster, eager to get his point across with as little Cas-judgement as possible. "Not this type of different. We're not going to be risking our lives here. I was just wondering…if maybe you wanted to go laser tagging."

"_What? Laser tagging?" _Cas's eyes widened and his mouth fell slightly open, his even gruffer voice falling into a higher pitched octave of questioning. "I don't know what that is, but it sounds _very _dangerous. Dean, I don't think this is a good idea."

Heartened and amused by Cas's genuine concern, Dean let out a low, rich laugh for the first time in days.

"No, Cas, don't you worry. You're gonna love it, I swear." Dean laughed again. "Man, I haven't gone laser tagging in _years. _I knew you wouldn't judge me. Especially since you don't have the slightest clue what it even is."

Hearing the smile in Dean's voice, Cas breathed out a little, relieved that Dean had not launched into a suicide mission.

After explaining and re-explaining the game several times, Dean said sternly, his face growing serious, "Now, can you tell me what you're supposed to do in laser tagging?"

"Why would I have to explain it to you if you already know?" Cas cocked his head again in his usual curious way.

Dean furrowed his eyebrows and shook his head.

"Yes Cas, I already know, but I want _you _to tell me so that I can make sure you know."

"I don't understand your reasoning," Cas expressed exasperatedly, "but okay. So we all put on these costumes first. Afterwards, we get guns that don't actually kill people. As to why someone would invent such a useless thing, I have no clue. And also the fact that one would think to make a game out of symbolically shooting someone—"

"Cas. Stay on topic." Dean cleared his throat.

"Oh, right. So we have these guns that shoot lasers, and these lasers also do not kill people for reasons unknown—"

"Castiel, these reasons are not mysteries!" Dean clasped his head into his hands and slowly lifted it back up again so that only his eyes could be seen above his fingertips and his lips spoke between his fingers. "It's a _game. _We get to feel all the exhilaration and excitement of being on teams and shooting the other team without anyone actually getting hurt. Jesus."

"Yes, but I don't see how those are legitimate reasons to pay one of these institutions to fake shoot someone. _Anyway,_" Cas continued, eager to get back on track before Dean told him to, "we try to shoot as many people as possible while minimizing the number of times we get shot."

"_Good, _Cas," Dean smiled, patting him roughly on the back. "I think you're ready."


	2. The Quality of the Establishment

Dean and Cas pulled up in the Impala into the _Laser Zone _parking lot.

"I am still not accustomed to this whole 'car' thing," Cas said as they climb out.

"Oh can it, angel boy. You'll learn to love Baby. Everyone does." Dean slammed the door behind him, not locking the car door as usual.

They walked side by side into the building plastered with fluorescent neon lights.

"Are you sure this establishment is reliable, Dean? It does not seem to be the most pleasant place," Castiel remarked as he looked the building up and down, narrowing his crystal blue eyes.

"Relax, Cas. You'll be thanking me later," Dean replied.

Inside, even more chaos struck as a dark room lit only by flashing lights greeted them. After buying their game, Dean and Cas walked into an even more poorly lit room with even brighter lights. People rushed in after them, eager to start the game.

"Agh," Cas exclaimed, "What is this?"

Dean, tired of answering the exact same question over and over again, didn't respond. A tall, brunet employee with shaggy hair, a nose ring, and a face caked with acne walked in and told them to put on their vests. The vests were made of black fabric with a clear case over the stomach area, revealing flashing lights. Connected to the vests by a thick cord were the guns.

"Now Cas," Dean started, "put the vest over your head like so." He proceeded to slide the vest effortlessly over his head. "Now buckle me in the back."

"Uh, what?" Cas asked, confused as usual. As he walked around to Dean's backside, he saw where the clasp needed to be buckled just above Dean's waist. Carefully working his hands to gently press the back of Dean's shirt, a subtle but clever move at feeling the clean crease down the middle of his back. "Okay," he said, after a moment, "I think I did it."

After, Cas attempted to slip the vest over his head with the same ease as Dean, eager to impress him. However, he couldn't figure out where to put his arms and ended up squeezing his right arm in with his head.

"Um, Dean?" Cas looked down, embarrassed.

Dean couldn't help but let out a giggle, not wanting to further embarrass Cas, and said, "Okay, big boy. Let me help you out."

Dean grabbed Cas's wrist and lifted the vest slowly over his head.

"Let's try this again," Dean muttered, in his matter-of-fact work voice.

He slipped the vest over Cas's head for him, placing both his arms through their proper openings more coarsely than he normally would have. Cas felt a bit disappointed that Dean didn't seem to be paying much attention to him.

"Now turn around."

Cas did so, and Dean quickly snapped the clasp into place, to Cas's dismay, for Dean was so excited about laser tagging he lost all feelings of intimacy and replaced them with competitiveness and exhilaration.

The colors on their stomachs locked into place. Dean's showed red while Cas's blinked blue.

"Nice," Dean let out a chuckle. "We're on different teams. Looks like you're on your own from here."

The same tall employee walked back into the room.

"Alright!" he shouted above the din of people's voices and the loud music. "Get ready to protect your bases!"

"Bases?" Cas sounded worried. "Dean, what is he talking about, bases? What's going on?"

"Oh, damn it!" Dean let out a groan. "I didn't know we were playing bases. I'll try to explain it to you as fast as I can." The crowd of people flooded through the door into the arena. "But we gotta get going!"


	3. Protect Your Base

As they rushed with the crowd through the double doors leading to their fates, Dean shouted above the noise.

"Cas! There are bases on the ceiling! You're on the blue team, so protect your base but also try to shoot the other teams' bases!"

"Does this mean I don't get to shoot people?" Cas asked, a little disappointed. Dean's excitement had rallied him into a competitive spirit.

"Of course you do!" As they arrived inside the large dark room filled with maze-like walls and more flashing lights, Dean yelled, "You're on your own buddy!"

At that, he shot Cas straight in the chest. Cas's stomach light beeped the sad beep of defeat. He looked down for a moment, gathering his thoughts.

Dean, slightly concerned that he still didn't understand the fun of the objective, asked, "You okay Cas?"

Castiel lifted his eyes, and Dean saw them shift from puppy dog blue to pure fire just before Cas shot him back. "Catch me while you can, asshat!" Cas dashed away around a corner into the darkness of the surroundings.

Dean shook his head and ran after him. However, he became distracted as a young shaggy-haired boy, around 12 years old, stuck his head out from behind a wall and shot him, guffawing as he ran off. "You're gonna regret that!" Dean's brows furrowed and his eyes grew wide as he chased after the kid.

Dean and Cas remained separated for quite some time, as a hoard of preteen boys had ganged up against Dean, whose competitive fire multiplied as the number of boys did.

As they cornered him, Dean, who had fended them off quite well for some time, grew nervous. "Okay," he laughed, trying but failing to sound nonchalant. "How about we form an alliance? There's this guy in a trench coat, one of the best laser taggers in the country here. He's on the other side of that ramp-" Dean pointed. As the kids turned around to look, Dean made a run for it.

"Hey!" the original attacker shouted. But he didn't initiate running after him. "We should look for the trench coat guy," he said in a low voice as a nasty grin. "I saw him earlier; let's get a resource like him on our team."

Dean, turning a corner and laughing the giddy laugh of a child who just won the grand prize at Plucky Pennywhistle's, remembered Cas. 'I should check up on the poor guy,' he thought. 'I hope his score isn't too low; he'd be so embarrassed.'

He scanned his eyes across the room and through the breaks and squares in the carpeted walls, but his ears gave way first to Cas's voice. "Get out of here, you assbuts!"

Following his ears, he found himself sneaking against walls and guarding himself with his gun, in the same fashion in which he protects himself during hunts, until he discovered Cas standing directly under his blue base, warding off a few grown men in black beanies. Members of the green team, they called for assistance. Fellow green team members, tall and heavily muscled, pushed past Dean, more focused on taking down Castiel, the biggest obstacle to other teams and the biggest aid to his team. Dean stood there watching, frozen and astonished as Cas harbored an incendiary look on his face and shot down every opponent, ducking and dodging each laser response, until the men finally gave up and resigned themselves to going for the yellow team's base.

"Let's go, guys," commanded the biggest guy, who appeared to be the leader. "This one is gonna be harder than we thought."

They slowly backed up and then proceeded to sprint away in order to avoid any more of Cas's onslaughts.

"Whoa, Cas, where did that come from?" Dean asked in disbelief, patting him on the back.

Without a moment of hesitation, Cas pointed his gun at Dean's chest and pulled the plastic trigger several times, assaulting him with a barrage of laser bullets.

"I know you're here to deceive me, Dean. Run, before I shoot you again. This base shall remain protected."

"Whoa," Dean replied in a low but surprised voice, looked Cas up and down before looking down at his own chest as it beeped defeat. After a moment of Cas staring him down, Dean ran off again. "I guess he's really getting into this," Dean said to himself. "Hm, who woulda guessed that angel boy could actually play a game?"

Dean rounded a corner, shooting a thin, dark-haired girl in black skinny jeans and a black Metallica t-shirt.

"Sorry about that, honey. Nice taste in music, though."

She said nothing and skulked behind the refuge of a nearby wall.

He looked around, wondering why his area was so empty. The big guys who went after Cas earlier pushed past him again, and just as he shrunk in anger and was about to call them out, the prepubescent hooligans that attacked him earlier ran after them, yelling, "Look for the trench coat guy!"

"_Damn it,_" Dean muttered to himself. "I forgot to tell Cas about them."

Dean darted back to where Cas's base was, only to find him already surrounded by the unlikely alliance.

"We know you're a champion at this. One of the best in the country," the shaggy-haired boy spat as he stood with his arms folded across his chest, obviously confident in the backup he had recruited.

"What are you talking about?" Cas squinted his eyes as he looked around at those who had besieged him. "This is just a game, guys. Is it even possible for someone to be a champion at laser tagging?" His face remained placid, convinced that they had the wrong guy.

However, they kept edging towards him, their plan (contrived by none other than shaggy kid) being to force Cas onto their team and have him betray his teammates in front of them by shooting at his own sacred base.

"Cas!" Dean shouted. Cas turned around, surprised to see Dean standing here.

"Dean," he said firmly. "These people think I'm some sort of champion at laser tag." He cocked his head. "They must have confused me with someone else, if such a champion exists."

"Oh no," Dean muttered under his breath as the crowd closed in. "Um, that may have been me," Dean gave Cas a nervous smile and sheepishly held up his hand.

"What?" Cas uttered in disbelief, but by then it was too late.


End file.
